Target, Macy’s Should Really Look Out For Amazon, Here’s Why

Around 46% of consumers purchased clothes on the U.S.-based online retailing site ‘Amazon’ over the past twelve months, according to a new survey from Morgan Stanley. This has marked the second highest percentage in the survey, with the first and the highest percentage in the hands of Walmart at 60%.

Amazon selling a lot of apparel

The frequency of purchase appears to be increasing recently. Morgan Stanley found out that around 36% of consumers have bought clothing on the e-commerce site “few times” this year in comparison to 31% a year ago.

The survey was conducted online in the United States with over 1,000 people who age 18 and over 18. The survey was conducted from April 4 to April 12. There were some shocking stats in the survey that should have executives at Target, Macy’s and other brick-and-mortar retailers on edge. Around 47% of Amazon apparel shoppers expect to purchase clothes on the online retailing site and fewer clothes on other retailers over the next twelve months.

The market share of the e-commerce giant gains “unsurprisingly” appears to have come straight out of Target and department stores, believes Morgan Stanley. The investment bank found that Macy’s, Sears Holding Corp., Target, J.C. Penney and Kohl’s lost 1.6% market share last year, which is roughly consistent with the 1.9% share that the e-commerce giant is estimated to have gained in 2016.

It was reported in January that the online retailing site is preparing to release an athletic apparel line to compete with the likes of Nike, Lululemon, and Under Armour. In the meantime, the e-commerce company has pushed into more basic apparels for men and women as well. According to the survey of Morgan Stanley, all of these categories are top in line with Amazon clothing shoppers.

The most popular clothing category on the online retailing site is “casual tops” with 67% of buyers purchasing the apparel, followed by shoes (52%), casual bottoms (40%) and athletic wear (40%).

Italian Police says Amazon evaded a large tax bill

A source familiar with the matter said on Friday that Milan tax police believes Amazon has evaded nearly $142 million or 130 million euros in in taxes in Italy. The allegedly unpaid taxes refer to the period between 2011 and 2015, said the source. It was the same period when the online retailing giant made revenues of nearly 2.5 billion euros in Italy.

The source further said that the findings of tax police have been handed to Milan prosecutors. In a statement, the e-commerce giant denied the claims saying that it did not evade any tax and its profits in Italy – on which taxes are paid – had been low due to its considerable investments in the country.

Nishtha Singh is a iStartup staff reporter who covers tech news, including review of devices, emerging startups, acquisitions, gadgets, Cars, Cloud, EVs, AR, VR, AI and more. Further, she is a reader, a tech-enthusiast, and a writer. Editor at Teenage Publishing and proof-reader at Evoque Publishing.